Newspapers / The Foothills View (Boiling … / Oct. 1, 1981, edition 1 / Page 6
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Shoe's Coming I f Tht'i'o's a rare bird on ihcse pa^os -- P. Mariin Shoemaker ;o be exaci. Beginninn ihis Thursday, The Foothills View will regularly publish Jeff Mac- Nelly's comic scrip “Shoe.” “Shoe" is an aviary that seems custom-made for The View and the circumstances under which we publish. It's the adventures of a collection of birds that includes P. Maitin Shoemaker, newspaper editor of The Treetops Tattler-Tribune; Cosmo J. Fishawk, absentminded “j)erfesser” and pait-time repoiter; and a scruffy clutch of other feathered friends such as Shoe's .secretary, an inept [)ilot, and the "l)(>rfesser's'' nephew. “Shoe” is the ci'eation of Jeff MacNelly, 32, who has won Pulitzer Prizes in 1972 and 1978 for his editorial caixoons. He also possesses the George Polk Award and has won National Cartoonists Society Awards for both his editorial cartoons and for "Shoe.” The latter comic strip runs in more than 400 newspa))ers daily and Sunday. THE SCOTT REPORT by PAUL SCOTT POLAND AND THE AN-H-WAR MOVEMENT Washington, D.C.: A new and unexpected factor is looming large in the backing and filling of Soviet leaders on whether to intervene militarily in Poland to stop the spread of freedom there. This is the reemergence of a strong anti-war movement in Western Europe and its mushrooming campaign a- gainst the stationing of U.S. medium-range missiles and the neutron bomb on the continent. Pro- Soviet- movement leaders in West Germany have cautioned the Kremlin against sending troops into Poland at this time. Their warning is that Soviet mili tary action against Solidar ity, Poland’s free labor movement, would under mine and destroy their anti war movement in the West for years to come. The heart of the message that these anti-war leaders have sent Moscow is that their campaign is attracting hundreds of new followers every day and now has a 60-50 chance of halting the , deployment of U.S. medium- range missiles in Western Europe despite NATO's de cision to go ahead. The West Germany peace activists boast that they already have been successful in their campaign to delay if hot block the deployment of the U.S. neutron bomb in their country. In the view of these anti-war leaders, the only thing that can now upset their campaign a- gainst Euro-missiles would be the backlash created by a Soviet military occupation of Poland and its political and economic fallout. Anti-communism is pic tured as still a potentially powerful force in Western Europe although it is now dormant in most countries. A massive movement of Soviet troops into Poland, they contend, would trigger this powerful torce into re newed action. The non-intervention ap peal from Western anti-war leaders has apparently split the Soviet leadership over the immediate strategy they should follow toward West ern Europe. The Brezhnev group takes the position that it is the best course since Russia needs at least another year to rebuild its war reserves in food before undertaking any new large-scale military act ion. The Polish Crisis The second strategy would give the crisis in Poland the highest priority. It calls for using mUitary force to check the bold challenge of Poland's free labor movement against Communist party control, and to keep the free labor movement from spreading to other Soviet bloc count ries. Defense Minister Ustinov, now in charge of the massive military maneuver under way on the borders of Pol and, is the leader of those supporting this strategy. This group backs an immed iate crackdown in Poland on the grounds Russia's mili tary lines of communication through Poland to East Ger many are threatened. Their argument is that these lines of communication are vital and must be secur ed before any new military operation is undertaken in volving large numbers of Soviet or Eastern European troops. This includes the Middle East where more than 250,000 troops are poised near the Iranian border to move into that country when the present government falls apart. It is the estimate of both U.S. and Soviet intelligence that this could happen at any time. Threat to Soviet Bloc The Two Strategies Intercepted Soviet dis patches in Eastern Europe indicate that a sharp debate is now underway in the Kremlin over which of two strategies should be given the highest priority. The first involves the Soviet’s ongoing multi-bil lion dollar propaganda cam paign to block NATO's dep loyment of 572 U.S. med ium-range missiles and neu tron warheads in Europe. As outlined to Eastern European diplomats, this strategy provides for the overt and covert support for the renewed anti-war move ment in Western Europe and the U.S. The overall objective is to neutralize Western Europe by changing the balance of military power overwhelm ingly in the Soviet’s favor in the European theater. This could lead to the ending of NATO as a military alliance and the forced withdrawal of U.S. forces from Europe. Soviet party chief Leonid Brezhnev is pictured as the leader of those in the Krem lin supporting this strategy. The Ustinov group has taken the position that if Solidarity's continuing bid for moral freedom isn’t crushed soon it will begin to spread to other Soviet-bloc countries. This could endan ger Soviet control over all of Western Europe. At the present time, the Brezhnev group apparently has the upper hand. Their position is supported by the continued growth of the anti-war movement in West ern Europe and its accept ance of communist support as in the case of the weekend demonstrations in West Ber lin during Secretary of State Haig’s visit. The protest was organized by the youth organization of the ruling Social Democratic and Free Democratic Part ies of West Germany and joined by the West Berlin unit of the East German Communist party. Despite successes like this — of turning the West against the West, U.S. intel ligence experts warn that the Soviet strategy could change overnight. The rea son is the new boldness of Solidarity’s exciting call for free elections in Poland and offer of help to those who want free-trade labor unions in other Soviet-bloc count ries. Such open defiance of the communist system has nev er been permitted before within the Soviet bloc. Cur rent war preparations by the Soviets indicate that a military move into Poland is only one of timing. SHOE by Jeff MacNelly ’r I'MIO!KIN'F02A .Miu'Nclly calls himself a conservative -- "a small m’ mugwump with Whiggish tendencies,” he says -- overriding view is that editorial cartoons hut his should he funny. I get a lot of help from politicians in Washington who unknowingly contribute to the humor of my work,” he says. “These days there are an awful lot of reasons for readers to be full of gloom and doom. Editorial cartoons should not contribute to that mood In a desert nearly devoid of humor, editorial cartoons should allow a reader to pause and get a few laughs.” A native of Cedarhurst, N.Y., MacNelly began his career drawing spoixs and editorial cartoons for his college pai)er, the Daily Tar Heel, at the University of North Carolina. Later, as editorial cartoonist for the town newspaper. The Chapel Hill Weekly, MacNelly lit his stride, spoofing the local upheavals and “rediculosities” that characterize North Carolina politics. MacNelly challenges politicians with his humor. “I try to make my point through humor,” he says. “I believe that this is the most effective way to reach my reader - while I’m entertaining him.” This apj)roach has been popular, and even MacNelly’s victims are tickled. In nny lifetime such grave respect has not been extended to the stock market. We were trained, in the post-New Deal era, to think of it as a barometer of quick profit. The market is up? Business is good - and the great public is paying for it all. The stock market is down?Busine§s is not so good -- but it is paying over some of its huge profits to the great public, and that is transcendently good. It has been since before I can remember that the liberal- philanthropic-intellectual lobby has gathered, as if at the funeral of the boy who stood on the burning deck, to weep over the stock market’s demise. What is the market saying ot us? The accepted solution to that question is that the stock market is reacting against the tax cuts on the grounds that they are going to push the estimated deficit for fiscal 1982 from $40 billion to $60 billion. There are, apparently, people who believe this. Now the estimated deficit for 1982 at $40 billion, rounding off the figures, wouid mean to all of those technicians sur rounding Ronald Reagan’s forecast that revenues would be less than expenses by 6 percent. Suddenly, the recal culations of July and August based on continued high interest rates-and unemploy ment benefits wrenched that figure away - and added $20 billion to it. At this catastrop hic misreckoning, the stock market died of shock and zoomed down 150 points. Again, there are apparently people who believe this. My colleague William Rush er has defined a few laws of human behavior of which my favorite is known as the Law of Rusher’s Gap. It is best described a posteriori. So you want a swimming pool and you call In the contractor and he tells you it will cost $10,000 but - you are a man of the world, so you know it won’t cost $10,000. It will cost $12,500. Rusher’s Gap is the difference between $12,500 and what the swimming pool actually comes in at. Say $14,000 or $15,000. Now if Reagan’s technicians William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “ON THE a RIGHT” So you want a swimming pool and you call in the contractor and he tells you it will cost $10,000 but - you are a man of the world, so you know it won’t cost $10,000. It will cost $12,500. Rusher’s Gap is the difference between $12,500 and what the swimming pool actually comes in at. Say $14,000 or $15,000. ff prove wrong at $40 billion by the anticipated $20 billion, then their forecasts will have been off by 3 percent of the budget — not a very big Rusher Gap. If anybody will in guaranteed that he within 3 percent forecasts of anything at that man will overnight come a massive industry. What happened stay the all, be- critical month of August was, in my own judgement, a crystallizing lack of faith. In Reagan? No. In the democra tic system. Every night, on television, every channel de voted substantial time to how, under the new dispensations, this old lady would receive insufficient medical care or that young boy insufficient lunches or that young man insufficient help in going to college or that baby insuffici ent immunizations. The accumulation of these discontents suggested that the Reagan program was in danger, not because of the internal weakness of its planning (although I think the slow reduction in taxation at the higher levels is precisely such a weakness), but because of the predictable political resistance to national econo mic husbandry generated by lobbyists for the free lunch. The investor who believes we are really marching away from inflation and on the road to an increase in productivity would not cavil at a 3 percent miscalculation for the first year. That man is listening not to minor misforecasts in the White House. He is iistening to Lane Kirkland, the Black Caucus, and CBS, and the clergymen, and the humanita rian lobby. After all, they controlled the government over the past 15 years, they gave us inflation, a negative rise in true earnings and a tripled tax by bracket creep. The Dow Jones wonders whether they aren’t, given their showing in August, in strategic command of public policy. hi tl b e re th or w th do in fri sh se w he te of fii: ha an wh fill al\ thi re S6£ sh m hij me ha th« sin usi pie foe thi Do the $1 W01 wit val frie ET reb Se] ■ gUi G.I cas circ offi for, R B03 799 cpn and tifir" Rat Hai S POl NB 799"; Sen( Iron oz. 9/30 Tl req l: $1 ceni 1 li Icei 2 Ba( Tw: I Fu: rec:
The Foothills View (Boiling Springs, N.C.)
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Oct. 1, 1981, edition 1
6
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